Sunday, December 21, 2014

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK:SONY

This is my last douchebag column for 2014, so next week will be my douchebag of the year one. I thought of many to make that distinction such as Bill Cosby, the CIA, cops, and of course, either the democrats or Republicans. But this week, Sony Pictures has acted with such disregard for common sense, American values and bravery, that they are almost certain to be next weeks winner. Let's see those runner ups.

10)Greenpeace- While I respect what these guys are trying to do, this week they crossed a line when they defaced a World Heritage Site. I expect this from extremist morons but for these asswipes to paint a message that said "Time for change. The future is renewable. Greenpeace," right next to the Nazca Lines in Peru is more horrific than an oil spill any day. Admirable message, wrong method. Somebody should be in jail for this, which would allow them to see how bad a Peru jail really is. Dumbasses.

9)Annie- Proving how bad Sony is being run, this travesty of the musical is yet another black eye on a studio reeling from one bad decision after another. So according to their own emails, and backed up by facts, black people starring in movies do not play well overseas. Call it racist all you want, it's true and as a business you should be making movies people will pay to see everywhere. On top of that tidbit comes the realization that no movie made originally with white people and then made for black audiences succeed either as both the Odd Couple and the Honeymooners died a painful death. White and black audiences don't care for these, so why make this at all? Then just to make sure the film sucks, you hire a director who has no musical background (and trust me it shows) and a lead actress who can't sing without being auto tuned within an inch of her life. And guess what? The film tanked. North Korea didn't need to threaten the theaters with a bomb. There was already one playing.

8)Michelle Obama/Whoopie Goldberg- Can we please have a moratorium on rich and famous black people playing the race card? Goldberg stepped in it this week when she claimed only black people can really understand racism when Rosie O'Donnell correctly chimed in with the fact that as a lesbian, she gets a lot more racism than her. Trust me, it's a lot better to be black than gay in many states where no legal protections are in order for the LBGT crowd. And then, Mrs. Obama claimed racism when she was shopping for a photo op in Target and some short woman asked for help getting something off a tall shelf, which she instantly equated with racism. Somehow asking for help to a black person is now racist. She didn't ask the first lady for help with a price or to get something from the back room, which would suggest she thought she worked there, but help getting something off a shelf she couldn't reach. I've been asked that many times while shopping and I never thought people thought I worked there. You're black. Deal with it better than this.

7)Muslim Extremists- If North Korea didn't have a shit fit this past week, Muslim extremists would have gotten much more airplay. In Australia, some Iranian douchebag took a bunch of people hostage who just wanted a piece of chocolate and in the end died along with two hostages. Much worse, was the fucking Taliban in Pakistan who killed 140 people, mostly women and children. This has made them very unpopular all of a sudden and the government attacked them in droves. Classic overreach where if you go to far, sympathizers become your enemy.

6)Banks- As all the news this week has been either about North Korea or the lessening of economic embargoes against Cuba, the last bit of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Volker rule, has been quietly eliminated, just like the budget bill that allowed banks to put taxpayers back on the hook for their gambling losses. The Volker rule made sure banks had enough capital to pay back their bets, which they still didn't even with the watered down rule, but now can go back to their hog wild ways, pre 2008 and we all know how that turned out. Banks suck.

5)Cops- This week, two NYPD cops died in an ambush while sitting in a car. And while I do NOT condone such an action, I do understand it. Protests have done nothing to stop an out of control police force who are killing our pets, our children, our parents and ourselves with alarming regularity. The last straw was the grand jury that inexplicably failed to charge the cop with the death of Eric Gardner. To quote JFK again, "When peaceful protest becomes impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable." This will happen more and more if cops keep acting like dangerous thugs. We need a serious conversation about how to keep everyone safe, police included, but as no one is listening, more cops will be shot and as there are 300 million guns in this country, no matter the hardware they have, they are very vulnerable to guerilla style attacks as this one was. Wise up guys because a reckoning is coming if you don't change your ways and there is nothing that can be done to stop it if you don't.

4)Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio- These two brainpowers bitched and moaned about the ending of the embargo of Cuba saying such ridiculous things as "Cuba condones torture," and "Cuba does lots of human rights violations," which conveniently forgets that the US was just found guilty of doing the exact same thing in a study released just last week. The CIA and the Republicans engaged in war crimes, the exact same things that people were put to death for during the Nuremberg Trials, but Cuba is the bad guy here. Man some people are stupid.

3)North Korea- Committing essentially an act of war against the US, these numnuts first stole reams of personal data from Sony and then threatened to bomb theaters that had the audacity to show a movie they didn't like. WHHHAAAAA! Kim Jung Un is exactly the kind of dictator we should be afraid of, because he may actually believe himself to be a god, and people like that rarely make good decisions. As their army is not exactly the most feared, even if it is large, their missile capacity is somewhere between a model rocket and a Scud. If push came to shove, we could annihilate them in minutes with little chance of retaliation. Un had another temper tantrum today, threatening the US with hellfire and brimstone if we don't apologize for accusing them of being behind the Sony hack, which they most likely were, conspiracy theories be damned. I hope the Interview does come out soon and people make a point of seeing it just to tell Un to suck it.

2)Movie Theaters- The cowards started the ball rolling when shop owners and theaters started to whine about the Interview and decided to pull the movie from wide release, panicking Sony. Nevermind the fact that North Korea has been threatening us since 1952, because we are still technically at war with them. Had we attacked them in 1994 before they got nukes we would have been much better off, but once again Jimmy Carter had to get involved and had us sign a truce they would break almost immediately. I hate Carter when it comes to foreign politics which he really, really sucks at. But theaters and shop owners are pussies who don't seem to realize that these guys talk big but never go through with anything simply because they don't have the ability to do 99% of what they threaten. Even if one theater got attacked, it would have been an act of war that would have resulted in the genocide of North Korea. Way to wear some pink panties guys. What a bunch of babies.

1)Sony- It's bad enough that their emails show a complete disregard for anything resembling knowing what they are doing, but then to go about and cry about how pulling the Interview is not their fault, insults our intelligence. In one set of emails you say, "don't hire Denzel because black people don't do well overseas", and then in another set, champion for Idris Elba to be the next James Bond. So black people do terrible BO overseas but you want to hire a great black actor to play someone in your biggest franchise? WTF? Then, you blame theaters for not playing the Interview claiming Sony wanted to go through with it but they had no choice to pull it. Unfortunately, we have access to their emails, thanks to the hackers, and they strongly suggest that you thought the film would bomb, which also suggests you have no idea how film tracking works, or that after all the free publicity and North Korean threats that this could have been one of the biggest movies of all time. Theaters suggested a limited release first and then widening it if nothing happens. Sony nixed this idea as well as VOD, DVD's and offers from people like Bit Torrent to stream it. The CEO of Sony was on CNN recently saying things like "No one wants to distribute it," and "we have no platform to play this on," which is a lie as some theaters did want to play it and you have a PlayStation network that could stream said movie. You people are cowards who made the entire country less safe now that any idiot with a grudge can threaten a theater and people will bail. Fuck you Sony and your idiotic, non-believable lies about the film. Everyone there should be fired. Congratulations Sony you are douchebag of the week, and I'll be seeing you again next week for douchebag of the year. What a bunch of pussies!